Dead Man's Folly

Peter Ustinov stars once more as Hercule Poirot, Agatha Christie's insufferably brilliant Belgian detective. Unlike many of Ustinov's earlier Poirot vehicles, which were set in the 1930s, the made-for-TV Dead Man's Folly takes place in contemporary England. Jean Stapleton costars as an American ...more

With its inexplicable 1980s setting and its cast of delightful biddies such as Constance Cummings and Jean Stapleton, this Agatha Christie outing seems more like a glorified episode of Murder, She Wrote than a Hercule Poirot mystery. The shift in time to a more contemporary setting was probably a budgetary constraint rather than an aesthetic choice; the plot is pure Christie and could have been tweaked to take place in almost any time period. With the exception of the aforementioned grand dames, ...more